Tabitha (34 page)

Book 1:
Stealthy Steps
, also
available in
print
and
audiobook
format

Book 2:
Stealth Power
,
fall 2016

Book 3:
Stealth Beyond
Borders
, 2017

Excerpt from Stealthy Steps:

My name is Gemma Keyes.
Other than my name, I am utterly forgettable—so
those who never
paid much attention to me in the first place aren’t likely to notice that I’ve
disappeared. Vanished. Oh, it’s much more complicated than that.

I should tell you about Dr. Samuel Bickel, world-renowned
nanophysicist.
We used to work together, but I’ll be candid with you:
He’s
supposed to be dead
.
Well, he’s
not
. (Imagine my surprise.)
Instead of the proverbial “six feet under,” he’s subsisting in an abandoned
devolution cavern beneath the old Manzano Weapons Storage Facility on Kirtland
Air Force Base here in Albuquerque.

“I need to show you what I’m protecting here, Gemma,” he
insisted.

I stared into the clear glass
case.
I could hear . . . humming, clicking, buzzing. A
faint haze inside the box formed and moved. It reminded me of how mercury, when
released on a plate, will flow and form. Only this, this . . .
thing
was “flowing and forming”
in mid-air
.

“Do you see them?” Dr. Bickel asked.

“Them?” I was confused. My mouth opened to a stunned “o” as
the silver haze flowed and formed blue letters spelling out
H   E   L   L   O
.

Hello.

I blanched. Dr. Bickel hadn’t pressed any buttons. Hadn’t
said anything. Hadn’t gestured.

He grinned. “Ah. They’ve noticed you. They know that they’ve
not seen you before.”

“Well, I wish they
wouldn’t
notice me!” I choked on
the words, my eyes fastened on the glass case.

And I need to warn you about
General Cushing.
The rank and name likely conjure images of a
lean but muscled soldier, posture rigid, iron-gray hair cut “high and tight,”
and a face cemented in weathered, unyielding lines.

Let me disabuse you of that impression. General Imogene
Cushing is short, a tiny bit plump, and wears her beautiful silvered hair in an
elegant braid knotted at the nape of her neck. She knows how to smile sweetly.
With
the very best of sharks.

You wouldn’t suspect a two-star general—an Air Force O-8—of
being a traitor, would you?

Vikki
Kestell’s passion for people and their stories is evident in her readers’ affection
for her characters and unusual plotlines. Two often-repeated sentiments are, “I
feel like I know these people” and “I’m right there, in the book, experiencing
what the characters experience.”

Vikki
holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Learning and Instructional Technologies. She
left a career of twenty-plus years in government, academia, and corporate life
to pursue writing full time. “Writing is the best job ever,” she admits, “and
the most demanding.”

Also
an accomplished speaker and teacher, Vikki and her husband Conrad Smith make
their home in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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